Meghan Markle's New Show
and The New Chanel, and a 7PM NYE Ball Drop
Clockwise from Top.
“With Love, Meghan”
The Duchess of Sussex is starting off 2025 with some big news: she is launching a new Netflix series, “With Love, Meghan”, where she channels her inner Martha Stewart and hosts celebrities for cooking, gardening and chit chatting in beautiful Montecito:
Mindy Kaling, Alice Walters, Roy Choi and more, along with husband Prince Harry, are aboard With Love, Meghan, which fans can view in the trailer above, as Markle attempts to “reimagine the genre of lifestyle programing.” The eight-part series will launch in a fortnight’s time on January 15 and feature a ream of celebrity guests and friends of Markle’s, along with her spouse.
She posted the trailer to her new Instagram handle: @meghan, which is up to 1M followers and which follows no one else (not even her husband).
This format is probably better for her than the podcast, where she was very careful about what she said and was concerned about her image, and really only connected with her friends (e.g., Mindy Kaling & Serena Williams). But she is really returning to her roots as a lifestyle blogger, and she looks a lot more comfortable being a millennial Ina Garten than Alex Cooper.
Musical Chairs
As rumored for weeks, especially by Lauren Sherman of the excellent Line Sheet, Matthieu Blazy will take over as Creative Director of Chanel once his non-compete at Bottega Veneta expires, with his first collection arriving in late 2025. Vogue has a write up here (paywall removed here).
He has big shoes to fill, and will be under pressure immediately. Chanel was long represented by Karl Lagerfeld, who was its Creative Director for close to four decades, and created the first modern luxury brand. And along with Louis Vuitton and Hermes, Chanel is one of the biggest luxury fashion brands in the world, with essentially unlimited resources at its disposal.
There were plenty of rumored successors to Lagerfeld’s hand picked successor, Virginie Viard, who graciously stepped down in mid-2024, including Hedi Slimane, Marc Jacobs, Phoebe Philo, and others.
Blazy’s appointment caps an absolutely meteoric rise. He took over Bottega Veneta when Daniel Lee was fired shortly after his disastrous Detroit show, and continued to propel the Bottega brand further to even greater heights.
With the Chanel job filled, the biggest creative director openings right now are Margiela (with John Galliano having stepped down this month) and Fendi (Kim Jones stepped down recently). The biggest names on the sidelines? Hedi Slimane, Pierpaolo Piccoli and John Galliano. We would expect either Pierpaolo or Galliano to end up at Fendi, with Hedi perhaps scrapping together funding for his own eponymous line.
Midnight Matinee
Raquel made it into a NY Post trend piece this week on an early New Year’s Eve ball drop party we went to this week:
Raquel Tirado, 40, from Jersey City, NJ, was sipping a dirty martini at Joyface with her husband Tuesday.
“We have a 3-year-old, we have to put her to bed,” the mom said. “We are going to leave at 8. The babysitter needs to leave at 9.”
We left the house at 4:30PM, there was a 7PM ball drop and we were home by 9PM to relieve the babysitter who then went out for a real party. I don’t know if it’s a trend, but it did really fit our schedule well:
“It ends up being mostly parents, like young parents,” Jennifer Shorr, owner of the Alphabet City club Joyface, said of the early-night celebration, which includes pizza, a champagne toast and caviar bumps for about $100. “It’s people that have babysitters at home, people that run outside and video chat with their child for a second and then come back inside.”
And we were able to squeeze in a quick smash burger at Hamburger America on the way home! Happy 2025!
Links.
Patchwork NFL puffers from Off Season.
The best Korean skin care products.
Why Netflix is prioritizing content to consume while folding laundry.
Kim K’s private equity foray is bombing.
Is Hedi Slimane launching his own brand?
The best book covers of the year.
How does MNZ stay in business?
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From Team TT
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